Friday

Google Inc. has announced a new initiative called Project10^100 . Its home page says "Project 10100 is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible." Here's what Andy Berndt, Managing Director, Google Creative Lab has to say about this intiative on google blog from Google Inc.

And The Reactions..

I was reading Thomas Claburns this article on InformationWeek's in which Thomas says "If you have a good idea, a really good idea, the sort of brilliant idea that might win Google's contest -- a way to produce a $0.01 straw that removes all impurities from contaminated water, for example -- why give that valuable idea away when you could commercialize it? You could start a company to support your idea, provide jobs to people, and help humanity at the same time."

Thomas gets pretty much bashed up by most commentors in the article and you gotta salute InformationWeek for approving those comments but i feel sorry for Thomas since he mentions a valid point and still gets bashed, a point that has not been addressed by Google Inc.'s terms and service agreement for this particular initiative.

Concerns that are raised(or should be raised if they are not raised yet)

1. Will Google make or can make its own commercial product from the ideas submitted?

2. What happens to the ideas that are not selected, can Google or its partners or employees use that data to spin off products for commercial interests without the original creator getting anything?

3. Google gets publicity worth a billion dollars, while the guy who gave the idea, gets "Good Karma"(as mentioned in the faqs here)

4. If something of commercial interests spins off the ideas(winner or not) do they get anything at all out of it?

5. Why are the orginal creators not part of the implementation plan?

6. Why isn't this sounding like a incubation thing when it is in a way?

7. There seems to be something about this things that is "half baked" and "hurried"?

Anyways the better part and the most interesting are the Intellectual property rights, it says

Google Says:

1. As between you and Google, you retain ownership of any intellectual and industrial property rights (including moral rights) you have in and to your submission.

Which means:

If you already have an IP right you retain them, for most submissions, they will just be ideas and will not hold any IP rights. So to answer the question, Do i own the idea?. Well, No.

Google Says:

2. As a condition of participation, you grant Google, its subsidiaries, agents and partner companies, a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non- exclusive license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, publish, distribute, publicly perform, create a derivative work from, and publicly display your submission and the proposal provided therein (1) for the purposes of allowing Google, the advisory panel and users to evaluate your idea for purposes of the call for submissions, (2) in connection with advertising and promotion via communication to the public or other groups, including, but not limited to, the right to make screenshots, animations and video clips available for promotional purposes and (3) for the purposes of putting your submitted proposal into effect.

Which means:Google can take your idea, modify it, claim it, use it. Ok not just Google but even its partners, employees, door cleaners, chef etc etc. Ofcourse there are chances they won't but this atleast is not taken care off in the terms of services.

Google Says:3. You agree that Google has final authority regarding this call for submission and the selection of the ideas to be considered for implementation. You acknowledge that your submission might be similar to ideas submitted by other participants and/or proposals independently developed by Google, and that Google does not need to recognize your submission should your idea not be the source of the proposal or proposals ultimately implemented. You further acknowledge that even if your proposal is selected by Google, Google is not compelled to implement your proposal in its entirety, or at all. Google reserves the right in its sole discretion to incorporate your proposal or any other ideas into the project or projects finally selected for implementation.

Which basically means:We can take your idea and develop on your idea and commercialise it. They also mention that Google might choose not to implement even the winning idea. After all the billion dollar publicity, 10 millions dollars could land back to google bank account.

What Worries MeI am actually worried, not about the ideas that win, but about the ideas that will not see the light of the day(and those will be millions of commerically viable ones being submitted). I get a feeling those will indeed be used for building a commercial product without the original creator getting anything. Not even acknowledgement.

Just to be fair here, it could be that none of this happens and Google doesn't use any of those ideas. But i still feel the idea winners should atleast get some monetary benefit and the ideas that don't win should be protected.

Google inc. could have used an outside neutral agency like KPMG to validate the process and make sure the ideas that do not win get disposed off in the right way and not become the personal property of Google employees or owners.

What Ideas You Should Submit:

Lastly i would say you should only submit your ideas in the contest if you have a philanthropic idea that's non commercial but would benefit a lot people and is difficult to implement by yourselves.

That's the only way everyone can benefit from this contest. DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR COMMERCIAL IDEAS.

But you know what, i get a feeling, Google has a lot of legal issues coming its way next year. Wonder why..hmm..still wondering...

Thursday

Its funny but the people who actually make online are the ones who tell others how to make money online(go problogger.net, johnchow.com etc.) and these guys make money by doing just that "telling people how to make money online.

Confused?

Well these guys make money off the guys who come to their website looking for a get rich quick schemes and since the population of lazy people is so huge, they get immense traffic and revenue from advertising.

The fact remains that they dont teach anything spectacular that someone with a little common sense would not know but they just keep writing the same old stuff again and again stuffing some more keywords they want to rank for in search engines.

I can bet 99% of people who come to their sites and read their stuff do nothing at all with their advice and even if they do they do not see any results.

But its not a fair world, in anycase if you really wanted advise and tips on making money online i have just one advice to give.

Even if you have never even made a single dime for yourself, start telling people how to make money online and soon you atleast will be rich.

With all i have heard an read i think we will still have to wait for the right smart phone in India, Iphone is too over priced(with US folks paying 199$ and Indians paying 715$ - what the heck aren't we supposed be a 3rd world country anymore?, wheres the cheap stuff?) and g1 is too "for google lovers only" phone.

Sunday

Alright this is a crash course in hinduism and just in case you are wondering why? well this is kind of my blog and i kind of feel like writing about it.

But there is a reason, someone in my family told me she had a debate with a muslim guy in her office who was belittling hinduism and trying to put islam as the real religion. She couldnt justify the points he raised and so i told her things about hinduism that she really needed to know.

I mean i care a rats ass about defending my religion, and i wldnt want anyone to defend being hindu or being christian but its good to know about yourself. Obviously this guy needs to do some growing up before he talks about faiths.

So before i start my bit on hinduism i just wanna say this to the guy who was debating religion and all people who point fingers at other faiths, you guys r mental retards with brainwashed poison minds and you wldnt experience real peace unless you change your thinking. And if you cant change your thinking do yourself a favor, keep your crap gob shut.

And on we go.

To start with as people have reiterated over and over, hinduism is not a religion, and thats why it appeals to me. Why would the creator want to have a religion, we could have just been pre programmed to believe in something he wants us to believe!

The origin of Hinduism as we now know cant be traced back in time and we can only speculate. But hinduism can be taken as collection theories, knowledge, culture, rituals and a way of life through ages and ages.

A lot of these traditions have changed over time and new knowledge was added and followed. But the central beliefs remain the same ober ages. Unfortunately, it seems the very beliefs that form the heart of this belief system have now been over shadowed by a lot of drama. Thanks to the all the religious gurus we have had.

So what is the central belief in hinduism?

The vedas are the source of knowledge which govern most of our beliefs as hindus. But even in vedas there are some beliefs which are essentialy form the very basis of hinduism.

These beliefs also answer a lot of questions by hindus and non hindus regarding the rituals we have.

Beliefs:

1. karma:

Hindus and all faiths stemming from it like jainism, buddhism, skihhism are called karmic faiths.These are called karmic faiths because they all believe in a souls karma.

By understanding karma and its implications hinduism tries to answer the qestions that most dread us like why are we here? what is the purpose of my existence? what happens after death?

The other stream of faiths like christanity, jewism and islam are called ibrahmic religions(or revealed religions) since they believe ibrahim was the first messenger and god revealed religion to him.

Ibrahmic religions believe in a resurrection day when all dead will be alive and they will have to face the lord who will decide if they will go to heaven or hell.

They believe in one life and based on that you either go to hell or heaven.

Some would ask why do some babies die just after birth and why they arent given enough time to do some good deeds to get into heaven?

Hinduism on the other hand beieves that we are not bodies, we are souls. The soul takes countless forms and we collect the consequence of every action we make.

There is something called cleaning up your karma, which basically means we are free from the cycles of life and death when we do not have to give or take anything from the material world. Kind of like your karma account balance going to zero, since you do not owe anything yiur bank account is closed and you are free.

So when a baby dies, it will take another birth or maybe her balance is lucky enough to be zero and she has become free or achieved nirvana.

This rationaly makes sense to me because it answers some of the most unsolved questiosn whose satisfactory answer i could not find in other faiths.

2. Existence of god

Hinduism believes in the existence of a "brahman" and "atman".

Brahman is the supreme soul(no not brahma). The brahman is probably what ibrahmic faiths call as allah or ilaha or god.

In hinduism brahman and atman are the only thing that exist and everything else is illusion.

The atman unites with brahman when it gets rid of its karma.(think of it as becoming pure again).

So what is atman?

We are atman. We have come from the brahman and destined to go back to him if and only if we clean up our karma.

In other words we think we are something, which is our ego, when ego dies you loose the self you though you were, when you loose self you become one with brahman.

Again reuniting with brahman has nothing to do with being a hindu or christian. You accumulate karma if you exist in the material world, you can reach nirvana even if you are not Hindu, the belief exists and applies to everyone regardless of what you call this belief or even deny it.

3. On achieving nirvana

Hinduism has had many sages through thousands and thousands of years who have shown people how one can achieve nirvana or moksha.

One or all modes can be followed and you can reach moksha. The most important are:

Yoga & Meditation, Mantras & Bhajan, Poojas & yajnas, deity worship.

The one thing common between all ways is that all ways take you on the step towards moksha by helping a person realise its trueself and purifying a person.

In Hinduism a soul can only achieve moksha in human form. Since its the most evolved of all material forms a soul takes.

To move towards moksha one has to realise what one really is. To realise what one really is, one has to let go off the image of self that one has of herself primarily what a person becomes as she grows up.

One has to achieve a mental state, which is tranquil and free from endless desires. Yoga, mantras, pooja, rituals, a vegetarin diet, sacrifice , fasting, deity worship are all ways of bringing your mind and body to a state where it is healthy, pure and tranquil enough to proceed on the path of nirvana.

Some people refer to deity worship as idol worship, which is rediculous. There is huge difference between deity and an idol.

A deity is bhagwan(pronounced as bhug-one) much like angels in other religions. These are higher energies created by brahman to help the world complete one cycle of this shrishti or matrial world there by giving atman a chance to purify itself and become one with brahman.

Idols do not have attributes but in hinduism sages have give each deity plenty of attributes.

Why do deities have attributes? why do hindus worship pray deities and not brahman the supreme self?

Because the purpose of worshipping in hinduism is not to just please god but to focus and concentrate on the god, this is one way of gaining the state of mind and body after which one can achieve moksha.

Confusing? its not.

Since atman that is us have material forms, we cannot meditate on brahman, because it is formless. With the limitaion of our material mind one needs to meditate on something it can imagine and see.

In Hinduism it is believed that when you meditate on something you start to take the attributes of the thing you meditate on, or in someway you will get influenced. Try putting the picture of a satan and if you meditate on him for long period you will take his attributes or be influenced by him negatively.

Each deity has a material form and attributes that lets a atman imagine and easily meditate on the deity he has chosen. Slowly he will embibe the deities qualities and achieve a state of peace in his mind and life.

A lot of people meditate on shri ram chandara, there a books and books written about how he was and how he lived his life and when people do meditate on such deities they embibe their qualities and become noble people and only the noble can truly achieve peace of mind.

By the way without understanding the true attributes and personality of a deity its of no use to meditate on him. This why they read artis, and bhajans and chant mantras. All is done to truly meditate on the deity and achieve a state where one can start on the path to achieve moksha.

Someone once told me ibrahmic religions say the purpose of our existence is to pray to allah or god.

This seems meaningless(sorry but it does) because we all agree the supreme soul has no ego, no attributes, why would he create us just to satisy his ego by worshipping him? It sounds like a surmon coming from a egoistic king.

The fact is we are in essence a part of brahman, we are equal, we do not need to worship anything, we just need to want and try to become one with the brahman again.

Enough gyaan for now, this can be a rather long post but ill end it here for now saying that what i mentioned above is the real crux of our faith. I respect all faiths and people who believe in peace and living and letting others live.

All religions have some rituals that are created to serve a purpose, the purpose can be to achieve unity, have a peaceful society or to gain power. But rituals are not the heart of the religion its the spirituality that is.

Hinduism teaches that all faiths can lead to moksha, and we own no patent on doing so;-) and its important to look inward rather than outward, to look at your own short comings before pointing at others so if i have unitentionaly pointed fingers on any other faith its just that, unintentional.

Tuesday

Lehman brothers is the latest casuality of US recession. Lehman brother filed for bankruptcy.The details of the chapter 11 filing state no other subsidary of affliate of lehman brothers holdings was included in the filing.

Troubles arent over yet as media speculates over whose next to fall down.

If AIG falls down it will be a huge blow for the insurance sector in India as Tata-Aig is supposed to become one of the top insurers in India over the coming years. But if somehow AIG manages to stay afloat for some more years the returns from India alone could see it through.